How accurate do you think Zillow, Cyberhomes, and Trulia are at estimating home value?

[007 license to sell]

Originally Posted by JamesandSallie

I am very curious as to how accurate (if at all) you think these websites are at estimating home value - in addition to looking at comps, etc - would you use the values from these websites in helping you determine how much to offer for a home?

Thanks!

If you have a realtor you can have them look up the stats in your local area. All that informtion is followed and kept by the NAR and the local realestate division. If you don't have a realtor, go to WWW.realtor.com and look up stats there for your area.

[DDevil]

I dont think that Estimates for a foreclosed home based on comparable homes matter anymore.

Sorry for making this long, I will explain with the following example:
Lets take a subdivision which has 20 site condos and all of them are identical and cost $150,000 originally and were valued at $200,000 in 2005 (this is after they appreciated)
Assume that the prices have fallen a little since 2006.
Now 1 home was sold in July 2008 (before the banking mess was officially declared) for $175,000.
Another was sold in Oct 2008 for $170,000.
Today there is a house that has been foreclosed and is now bank owned.
The people living in the house have moved out, but they have damaged a lot of the drywall, flooded the basement and ripped out the plumbing and electricals and taken away all the appliances.
Since it is not in a good condition, the house is listed at $150,000.

When you compare this house with the others, the CMA from these websites will consider that houses sold for $175k and $170k in the last 6 months and will suggest a price of 172.5k.
The bank also tends to stick with this price, and once they get an offer for $150k, they want the buyer to pay the $172.5k price.
If the house was in a move-in condition this may make sense, but not otherwise.

If the house was not a foreclosed home, then the estimates are quite accurate.